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The fashion industry is the second biggest polluter in the world. Major brands are exploiting garment workers and harming the environment in the production of shoes and clothing. However, there has been a rise in sustainable fashion brands, making everything from sportswear to underwear who are putting people and the planet before profit.

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As food & drink prices continue to rise across the world, it is often the producers and workers who are losing out to big corporations. We shine a light on the food sovereignty movement pushing for a fairer food system that supports local business and we comment on the rise of veganism.

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Many of the issues from our homes & garden are often hidden from the consumer, from toxic chemicals in our cleaning products to pesticides in our garden. We look at the greenest way to wash, clean and cook and how to recycle your old appliances.

The mainstream banking & insurance industries continue to invest in shady investments such as fossil fuels and nuclear weapons. However, a growing number of ethical alternatives makes it easier than ever to switch to a sustainable bank account or pick an insurance company with an ethical policy.

We look at shops or online platforms that sell a range of products, and how they tend to dominate the market by implementing a profit-first business model and by having a lacklustre approach to ethical practice. We also celebrate ethical companies offering an alternative, from online retailers to sustainable fashion brands.

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The tech sector is plagued by reports of tax avoidance, corporate lobbying and the use of conflict minerals. We look at the brands proving that technology can be made ethically, from Fairphone to Green ISP.

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Are you a lover of the outdoors? Unfortunately the companies that provide your outdoor gear & transport are often harming the environment; from car companies cheating emission tests to outdoor gear companies using toxic chemicals that damage the environment. We provide practical information for consumers on how to keep your ethics while you travel.

Plastic News

What companies are doing to get rid of single use and non-recyclable plastic. Plus tips for how to avoid plastic in your life.

How to avoid plastic waste

Friends of the Earth have a really good website devoted to living without plastic. One of their initiatives is Plastic Free Friday, a similar idea to Meat Free Mondays, where people are encouraged to give up plastic for one day a week, to ease them into a longer term plastic-free life. Join the campaign - pledge to go plastic free on Fridays.

Plastic-free tips

Have you got any tips to share about how to live a plastic free life? Let us know and we’ll publish them on this page. Email enquiries{at}ethicalconsumer.org or post on our Facebook or Twitter.

Perhaps you could start off by sending us your tips about how to have a plastic-free Christmas.

Supermarket news

In response to Waitrose announcing that they will remove all plastic bags from their stores by March 2019 (but replace some with compostable bags), Elena Polisano, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace UK said: “Removing all plastic bags is a sensible move by Waitrose, but retailers must focus on moving beyond packaging that’s designed to be used once then discarded, rather than swapping one disposable item for another.

Credit: Greenpeace

The Co-op’s pledge on plastic will see all its own-brand packaging become easy to recycle by 2023. But that’s not a ban on single use packaging just a ban on non-recyclable packaging.
It has also promised to use a minimum of 50% recycled plastic in bottles, pots, trays and punnets by 2021. All own-brand black and dark plastic packaging, including black ready meal trays, will be eliminated by 2020. It will also roll out lightweight compostable carrier bags.

Lidl removed black plastic from fruit and veg range in September but that still leaves loads of other products like ready meals in black plastic.

Single-use plastics ban approved by European Parliament

On October 24th 2018, the European Parliament voted for a complete ban on a range of single-use plastics across the union in a bid to stop pollution of the oceans.

MEPs backed a ban on plastic cutlery and plates, cotton buds, straws, drink-stirrers and balloon sticks. These items were chosen because there are readily available alternatives for them.

The proposal also calls for a reduction in single-use plastic for food and drink containers like plastic cups.

Items, "where no alternative exists" will still have to be reduced by 25% in each country by 2025. Examples given include burger boxes and sandwich wrappers.

One MEP said, if no action was taken, "by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans".

The European Commission proposed a ban in May, following a surge in public support attributed to documentaries such as David Attenborough's BBC Blue Planet series.

The measure still has to clear some procedural hurdles, but is expected to go through. The EU hopes it will go into effect across the bloc by 2021.

The UK will also have to incorporate the rules into national law if the ban becomes a fully-fledged directive before the end of a Brexit transition period.

MEPs also tacked on amendments to the plans for cigarette filters, a plastic pollutant that is common litter on beaches. Cigarette makers will have to reduce the plastic by 50% by 2025 and 80% by 2030.

Another ambitious target is to ensure 90% of all plastic drinks bottles are collected for recycling by 2025. Currently, bottles and their lids account for about 20% of all the sea plastic, the European Parliament report said.

Sir David Attenborough's plastic message

Anti-plastic campaigns

Supermarket packaging

In September, Greenpeace volunteers and shoppers have been handing items of single-use plastic packaging back at tills in over 60 supermarkets across the UK, with notes to store managers calling for action to reduce excessive throwaway packaging.

UK supermarkets generate more than 800,000 tonnes of plastic packaging waste every year. Shoppers were encouraged to remove unnecessary plastic packaging from items they had purchased and leave it at the checkout, handing responsibility for its disposal back to the company selling it.

Greenpeace UK’s most successful environmental petition is asking supermarkets to reduce the volume of throwaway plastic packaging they produce. It has been signed by over 700,000 people across the UK.

Walkers crisps

Campaign group 38 degrees has been campaigning to get walkers crisps to act faster to ditch its non-recyclable, plastic crisp packets. The inside of a crisp packet may look like metal foil but is in fact metallised plastic film. The packets are not recyclable – beach-cleaning volunteers in Cornwall have retrieved old Walkers packets believed to date from the 1980s and 1990s.

They have been encouraging consumers to post their crisp packets back to the company. The response was huge, and Walkers have announced a recycling scheme where people can post back the crisp packet in envelopes to recycling firm TerraCycle. 38 degrees is 'delighted' to hear about the move:

However, campaigners have questioned whether it is just a short term solution. Walkers have promised to go plastic free by 2025, but by then they’ll have produced 28 billion more plastic packets that will litter our beaches, our streets, and pile up in landfills.

Other crisp brands, including KP Snacks (which owns McCoy’s, Tyrrell’s and Hula Hoops), Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Lidl, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, have all matched Walkers’ pledge to make their crisp packets 100% recyclable, compostable or biodegradable by 2025 – in seven years time. But, as the leading brand, Walkers alone make 11m crisp packets a day so going plastic-free would have a big impact.